


Elspeth Beyond Death

by MrMultiverse



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 17,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23118229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrMultiverse/pseuds/MrMultiverse
Summary: With the absence of a fleshed out story for Magic's set Theros Beyond Death, I have taken it upon myself to expand upon the limited story beats provided. Come read how the events of Theros Beyond Death actually (probably, not really) came about.
Kudos: 5





	1. Prologue: Of Beginnings

**Prologue: Of Beginnings**

_ Thousands of years ago _

The great sphinx looked down on the pitiful plane and felt compassion welling in his chest. The barely developed races of Theros were destined to be wiped away in the senseless chaos of the Titans, and there was nothing Azor despised more than chaos. And so, the mighty Planeswalker alighted on a rocky spire, near the height of the world, and began to craft an incantation. One of the Titans nearest him took notice, perhaps drawn by the overwhelming eruption of mana that resulted from such an impressive spell. The being’s head turned, and gaping eyeholes lined with teeth fixated on the sphinx centered in the maelstrom of mana. The Titan abandoned the cowering band of centaurs it had cornered, loped effortlessly to the steep mountain, and began to climb.

Azor was not overly concerned with the Titan’s approach, but found it difficult to focus on the elaborate intricacies of his work while smiting lesser beings. To dissuade the monster, Azor let his corporeal form fade, casting his consciousness into the skies and transforming his bodily energy into a vast array of twinkling stars which danced and swirled in the heavens. The Titan let out a bellow of consternation at its vanished meal, and in the fields below the centaurs looked up in wonder. Further away, the denizens of Theros saw the twinkling of stars in the sky and trembled at what they could mean.

His spell complete, Azor smugly allowed the enchantment to settle like a blanket over the hemispherical plane of Theros. He watched as the Titans were snagged in its webbing, and the structured chains dragged each of the monsters below the earth, below the primitive field of lost souls, and down to the foundations of the world, where the beasts raged and were held tight. Content, the Planeswalker vanished from the skies of Theros, leaving behind a twirling field of stars.

~~

Over the following centuries, Azor returned from time to time, appearing as the familiar shifting constellation to strengthen the enchantment. The Titans remained dormant, the races of Theros thrived, and stories of the starfield that saved their home grew and grew.

As time went on, however, Azor suddenly stopped returning. The miraculous lights and colors that raced across the sky had been a once in a lifetime event for the Therans, but at some points the lights did not return, and the insistence of elders that the lights ever existed in the first place began to be scoffed at, as grandchildren looked after their aging ancestors. The stories of the fateful fight between the Titans of the realm and the sky itself faded into myth. The stars remained fixed.

Then, the Titans returned. No longer imprisoned by the powerful will of Azor, the Titans had been seething and growing in strength. The Titans were manifestations of the basest urges and desires, given repulsive flesh by the unique metaphysics of this world, and while the awe and reverence the Therans had shown Azor had inspired some form of religious morality, his absence allowed the denizens of the plane to slip back to the pettiness and depravity which had spawned the Titans initially.

This reversion fueled the second rise of the Titans, and soon they walked on the surface of Theros once more. The many races of Theros fled and panicked, aghast at the monsters from their children's stories come to life. They turned, then, to those stories, and finally saw the importance of the bright sky that had saved them thousands of years before. In their final hour, the mortals turned to prayer. From this concentrated devotion, mighty gods burst into existence, shimmering in the constellations just as the oldest myths described.

Wielding the faith of the mortals, the gods managed to push the Titans back to their resting place beyond the realms of death. Klothys, the newly formed god of destiny, saw it as her duty to act as jailer for the Titans, flinging herself beyond the boundaries of the Underworld and resigning herself to an eternity of ensuring the Titans remained trapped.

The remainder of the newborn gods took their place in the heavens of Theros, naming it Nyx, and set up their dominions, carving out aspects and locales on Theros for themselves. Relieved at the defeat of the Titans, the mortals prostrated themselves in praise of these mighty beings, and the gods were pleased with the supplications. 

Thus the pantheon of Theros was formed, and it was for many centuries that they watched over the world of Theros, basking in the adulation of their followers and presiding over the plane. Some gods grew petty and quarrelsome, while others pondered their existence and discovered secrets that went beyond the expanse of their sky. Below, beyond Erebos’s dominion, Klothys sat and waited for eternity to end, content to run her fingers along the threads of destiny, vicariously experiencing the flickering lives of the mortals above, finding solace in the defined brevity of their existences, seeing them as bittersweet counterpoints to her unending task.

That is, until the satyr Xenagos sought to usurp her.

~~

_ “This is beneath you.” _ Xenagos shook his horned head, nearly dislodging his cloak. In most worlds, he had been regarded as an outcast, or a freak of nature, or an evil portent of things to come.  _ At least that last one is accurate, _ he thought. In the years since his initial sparking, Xenagos had traipsed about the multiverse, seeking to fill the emptiness that threatened to overwhelm him. As a satyr, reveling and debauchery came second-nature to him, but he had always felt there was something more to his life that he was missing. With the revelation that an endless number of worlds awaited his discovery, Xenagos thought his existential numbness could finally be sated, but no matter how many worlds he visited, he still felt the emptiness.

That was when the voice started.

_ “This spark within you is what makes you unique - use it for your own benefit.” _ Xenagos knew about omens on his home plane, Theros, knew how the conduits of the gods heard and interpreted the language of the gods. His first thought was that he was the conduit of some larger god, not bound by any plane. Then he feared he might just be crazy, that his interplanar jaunt was just a figment of his imagination. Finally, he settled on the truth: Someone was talking to him. Someone who knew what he was, and knew of power.

If debauchery and planar tourism couldn’t fill the void, why not try power?

And so Xenagos had listened to that insidious voice, learning how the omnipotent Planeswalkers had been brought low, and how schemes had been set in motion to reclaim their former glory. Xenagos was reminded of the gods of Theros, but the voice mocked them with disdain.  _ “Pitiful constructs with no agency. I crafted whole worlds, sat in power for eons. They are nothing.” _

Xenagos was not as certain, though. He had seen mighty beings in his travels across the planes, but none had compared to the fearsome sight of the gods waging their endless wars against each other, their conflict painted across the stars. Xenagos had always held contempt for those who worshipped the gods, even before he realized how small Theros was. Still, if you had to be stuck on one single plane, being a deity was sure to be a fine way to spend your time there.

Xenagos wasn’t sure if he came up with the plan, or if it had been seeded in his consciousness by that slippery sentience. He did know that he would need help with the magics required to bring it to fruition, though. As the voice often reminded him,  _ “Nowadays, power always comes with a price.” _

With a more complete understanding of the metaphysics of Theros and mastery of leylines of mana from dozens of planes, Xenagos returned to his home and prepared for his ascension, and subsequent fall from grace.


	2. Chapter 1: Rest in Peace

**Chapter 1: Rest in Peace**

Elspeth was dead.

It wasn’t anything like she had expected, though.

After her confrontation with Xenagos, the last thing she remembered was her spear, her Godsend, flying from her hands and into Heliod’s grip. A flash of blinding light and searing pain later, Elspeth regained consciousness to watch her friend, the leonin Ajani, being ushered away from her as agents of Erebos crept closer. Her last thoughts had been a prayer to her murderer:  _ Give me quiet. Give me peace. Give me rest at last. _

For a time, her prayers were answered.

Elspeth woke in the brightening twilight of dawn to find her body framed in the loose fabrics that were common in Theros, only these garments were silken and dyed, much more extravagant than anything she had known as first a mercenary, and then reluctant hero. After this first observation, Elspeth’s eyes searched frantically for her armor - she never went far without it. Her panicked search was in vain.

Instead, she found a clay bowl of various fruits, sitting atop a stone table with a pair of intricately carved wooden chairs; a shelf with a handful of tomes, clear of any dust, though the titles implied they were quite old; a window, looking out from her modest room to a courtyard that reminded her of her brief time at Heliod’s temple with - Elspeth felt her heart jump in her chest, and her mind grew foggy. There was something, something she couldn’t quite place, something she had forgotten. Some part of her past that she would never have knowingly left behind, but now could not recall at all. This only added to her panic, and she looked again around the room, seeing a jail cell instead of a comfortable bedroom.

As she felt her breathing quicken, heard the blood pumping in her ears, she noticed a door. She couldn’t be sure the door  _ wasn’t _ there before, but Elsepth felt confident she would have noted it. Looking around one last time for something sharp to wield, she moved across the room. Finally, she sighed and tried the handle.

The door swung open easily, and revealed a wide chamber. If the room Elspeth had awoken in had been comfortable, this chamber was extravagant. Marble busts of the mortal guises of the various Theran gods sat in delicately carved niches. Between them, mannequins bearing armor and simple weapons stood at attention. The ceiling was high and vaulted, and hanging from wooden rafters were golden lamps that shone with a steady light. That light fell upon a long table that ran the length of the chamber, of sturdy wood and painted with a fine hand to depict battle scenes and miracles. As Elspeth watched, those scenes advanced slowly. Minutes must have passed while Elspeth followed a star-studded elk carrying a crying child over a raging river.

When Elspeth looked up from the table, she started at the sight of figures standing around the table. They were not easy to look at directly; their flesh appeared similar to that of the Nyxborn in that it twinkled with starlight, almost as if they had been woven together from constellations. However, while the Nyxborn were divine will made solid, these beings had an ephemeral air to them. Elspeth could make out the wall behind the nearest creature through its body, and the harder she tried to concentrate on where its face should be, the fuzzier and more confused she felt.

As she looked away from the being she was staring at, she realized the others had begun to silently flit about the chamber, pulling platters and jugs from gods knew where. Within a minute, the table was set for a veritable feast. The nearest spirit (they seemed much like spirits to Elspeth) motioned expectantly at the chair it had pulled out for her. Partially because it felt rude to ignore it, and partially because Elspeth realized she was hungry, she took the seat and allowed herself to be pushed to the table.

The meal was the richest experience of her morning thus far. A wine that tasted of berries, breakfast meats sliced thin enough to fold, and a warm, thick bread paired with honey sated Elspeth’s hunger, and as she pushed herself from the table, the spirits began to clear it, taking as little time to clean as they did to set up.

Just as suddenly as they had appeared, the spirits were gone, and Elspeth was left standing in the grand chamber, which was as spotless as when she had found it. Her attention was drawn to the far end of the chamber, where wide double doors stood, sunlight peeking through the frame. Just as before, Elspeth could not recall noticing the door before this moment. Curiosity and caution warred within her, but curiosity won out, and she approached the doors and pulled.

Beyond was a sight she had never thought to see again. Her first thought was that this was Bant, her adopted home for so long, with its golden fields of wheat. However, the sky above was a canvas of swirling stars, even in the morning sun. As she looked around, the buildings set upon small hills were foreign, as well, clearly belonging to Theros. Each building seemed almost identical to the one she had just walked out of, with a small flourishing garden and marble-floored courtyard. Rivulets and brooks crossed the cobbled paths that joined the entrances to those buildings, ducking beneath simple bridges and feeding into the wide fields of grain. Elspeth watched as dryads moved in those fields, and the plants ripened at their touch. Birds with stars in their feathers sang to greet the rising sun, and elks with their starry hides darted among the frequent copses of trees.

After hearing so often of the perils of the Underworld, Elspeth was astounded by what she was now witnessing. She remembered hearing of its cruel torment from… from someone. Elspeth fought against the fugue that buzzed around her head, trying to remember something, a name, when a voice called out.

“Ho! Welcome to Ilysia!” Elspeth spun at the noise, hands reaching for a spear that was no longer there, and instead dropped into a ready stance, taught to her so recently by…  _ Why can’t I remember? _

Two women approached her, strolling along the warm cobbles. The woman who had called out held an arm up and waved at Elspeth. Her hair swayed in the wind, the gentle curls a cloud of activity. Her viridian garment hung loose on her muscular frame, allowing for easy movement, and she casually held a spear in her other hand, easily taller than she was. Elspeth’s heart ached with longing at the sight of the spear, but it was a hunting spear, not meant for man-to-man combat. The other woman was taller and serene, her darker hair tied in braids behind her head. Red ribbons fluttered in the winds behind her, and a crown of shells framed her brow.

Elspeth watched as the two reached the path to her dwelling ( _ Why do I think of it as  _ my _ dwelling? _ ) and stopped. The taller woman turned to her companion. “Come, Renata, you recall your first day. Was this what you imagined?”

Elspeth finally found her voice. It felt as if she had not spoken for a year. “Is… Is this the Underworld?” She remembered the boon she had asked of Erebos, the deal she made with the god of death.

The shorter woman - Renata - laughed. “Oh, Callaphe, what sort of heroes are they training up there?” She turned to Elspeth. “These are the fields of Ilysia, the final resting place of the heroes of Theros.” She frowned. “Technically, I suppose, we’re Underworld-adjacent, but does this look like the endless arena of Agonas? The bleak ocean of Nerono? Or, Nylea forbid, blackened Tizerus?” She swept her spear out to take in the scene surrounding her. “This is Ilysia!”

Callaphe began to walk up the cobbled street again. “Come, darling, give her time to settle in. We’ll have the fullness of time to get to know her once she feels more at home.” Renata tilted her head and peered more closely at Elspeth, as if seeing her for the first time, then gave a toss of her curled hair as she raced after Callaphe. Elspeth was left outside the building as the sun continued to climb, wondering at what she saw.

~~

Elspeth eventually worked up the courage to step onto the cobbled street beneath the house she had woken up in, and began her exploration of Ilysia. As she walked among the other housing complexes, she eventually found herself at a nexus of various forms of entertainment. There was a sparkling arena where men and women sparred, a tiered theatre where the translucent spirits put on plays, endless rows of beautiful gardens in which pairs and groups of individuals frolicked, and paths to darker forests where wild beasts roamed and wide lakes where regal vessels sat anchored. There was more than Elspeth could hope to see in a day.

She found her way to the arena and procured a set of armor, which helped her feel more comfortable, though the spirits would not allow her to take the quarterstaff she fancied from the premises. She watched the performing spirits for an hour, losing interest in the format quickly and choosing to wander instead. She walked as far as her feet would take her through the gardens, but when she turned to see how far she had come, the top of the arena was still visible.

In time, the sun began to set, and Elspeth found herself walking back up to the house she had started at, though she could not remember deciding to go back. Within, the spirits picked insistently at her new armor, and she begrudgingly allowed them to help her doff it, but shooed them away as they tried to abscond with it. After storing it in the bedroom, she returned to find an evening meal that matched her breakfast in ostentatiousness.

Elspeth picked at the fruits and breads, but as she reached for the skewered meat, she gasped and opened her hand. The handle of the skewer had once been a pegasus, the symbol of Heliod, but it was mangled and deformed, as if under great stress. Her mind raced, trying desperately to recall where she had seen it before. She saw a smile, and an intricate tattoo on a shoulder, then a hideous monster with savage claws and teeth that dripped ichor. Elspeth pushed back from the table and glanced around the bright room, feeling a pressure in her head that made the walls seem like they were closing in. She retreated to the bedroom and flung herself onto the satin blankets, willing the nightmares to stop, or her memory to return.

She couldn’t have known that someone was listening.


	3. Chapter 2: Lurking in Shadows

**Chapter 2: Lurking in Shadows**

There were many aspects of Theros that the Planeswalker Ashiok enjoyed. Nightmares and fear had always been their specialty, and this plane was ripe with both. Imagine, a whole society based on fear and (to a lesser extent) love of the gods! Ashiok had dealt with these gods, and found them not quite as interesting as their subjects. They could certainly emulate emotions - Heliod was starting to become particularly paranoid - but their fear, when they felt it, was watered down, like a good wine mixed with too much water.

The mortals, however, were exquisite. The scent of fright practically rolled off their cities: fear of invasion, fear of the prowling leonin, fear of the marauding minotaurs. Such expansive tools for them to practice and perfect their craft. Ashiok’s first experiment, the creation of Cacophony, was a resounding success, though Ephara, god of city-states, had summarily absorbed the fledgling god of cities. This had taught them something crucial about the gods, something the gods likely did not recognize themselves: they were replaceable.

It was while contemplating how best to continue with their plans on Theros that Ashiok felt a pull from a pet stationed in the Underworld. When they had first arrived in Theros, Ashiok had thought the plane’s most pungent nightmares would be found in its hell, but as it so happened the soulless husks that inhabited it were incapable of dreaming, let alone experiencing nightmares. Existence itself in that damned hellscape seemed to be punishment enough. Ashiok had sent an embodiment of fright to monitor the denizens of the Underworld, then quickly lost interest when it failed to report back with any dream activity.

Now, though, there was a powerful signal coming from the heart of the Underworld, from Ilysia, that idyllic retirement home for fallen heroes. Though the legendary inhabitants of that realm lived out eternity in comfort and relaxation, they were as devoid of dreaming as their less fortunate neighbors across the border. At least, until now. Intrigued, Ashiok decided to make their way down to the foundations of Theros to investigate.

~~

Ashiok stood unseen at the window as the artificial sun set. The Underworld was cut off from Nyx and the rest of the heavenly bodies of Theros, but Ilysia sported its own facsimile of the sky to help the heroes feel more at home. Ashiok shook their head. Such petty comforts.

Within the room, a woman tossed and turned on a plush bed. Ashiok thought the woman looked familiar, but they didn’t pay too much attention to the popular figures from Theros’s past. It was clear, however, that this woman had not been told that she shouldn’t be dreaming. Ashiok’s ashen lips split in a grin as the energy of the nightmare roiled over their body. The smoke that replaced Ashiok’s upper face began to billow as they thought of the terrors that must be hiding within the woman’s mind.

Ashiok’s body turned ephemeral as they stepped through the wall to hover above the bed. They extended a talon-clawed hand to the woman’s tossing head and murmured a tiny spell to ease her thrashing. The woman’s body relaxed, though a sheen of sweat covered her skin and her brow remained furrowed. It was then that they recognized Elspeth, the recently deceased champion of Heliod.

Ashiok was delighted by this twist, and their smoke began to twist and turn as new hypotheses sparked to life in their mind - Was dreaming a skill that simply atrophied over time for Ilysians? Did the heroes of Theros simply learn to cope with the horrors they had witnessed while surrounded by the pleasant scenery of Ilysia? As they brushed back the shroud of Elspeth’s consciousness to peer into the recesses of her mind, however, the truth became evident.

She wasn’t Theran.

The forefront of Elspeth’s mind was filled with a tortured memory, but the backdrop was filled with landscapes and beings that could not exist on Theros (indeed, some that Ashiok recognized from their journey through the planes).

Elspeth was a Planeswalker, like Ashiok.

Ashiok felt a shiver of excitement pass through their form. Planeswalkers tended to be drawn to danger, to the dark corners of the Multiverse, and to have a specimen at their fingertips with knowledge of potentially terrible experiences was a delight. Unable to help themselves, Ashiok flung themselves into Elspeth’s nightmare.

~~

Elspeth found herself in a blue tent, noises of frantic combat muted by the thick fabric, a rotted corpse slumped to the ground, a young girl screaming her name by the entrance, while before her, her whole world collapsed.

_ Daxos. _

The man she loved knelt before her, a silver meat skewer piercing his throat, his eyes wide and unfocused, his hand clutching uselessly at the deadly weapon. Elspeth glanced down to her own hand and saw it was slick with blood. His blood.

_ What have I done? _

_ “Seems like we missed something,” a wispy voice mused. Elspeth felt a lurching in her gut as time seemed to slow, then retreat. She watched helplessly in reverse as Daxos rose to his feet, and she pulled the metal skewer from his throat, the skin miraculously sealing as his blood rushed back into his veins. As time resumed, Elspeth’s vision grew hazy. _

Daxos had disappeared. In his place, a Phyrexian Obliterator towered over her, an abomination built from the limbs and musculature of living prisoners, scythelike arms dripping ichor as they reached out for her. Noxious fumes poured from a mouth filled with too many teeth, teeth of varying sizes, from varying species. The grafted skin covering its form pulsed and steamed in the cool night air.

Elspeth glanced about for her spear, but it was missing. She swept her hand over the table for something, anything, to fight against this monstrosity. Her fingers brushed something hard and cold.

_ “What is that delightful being?” the voice purred with a sickeningly sweet intonation. Elspeth felt herself frozen again, and then a splitting pain erupted in her skull. It felt like a white-hot dagger was scrambling her brains, and Elspeth frantically prayed for the suffering to end. In her blind pain, she found herself praying to Heliod. _

_ “Ah, here we go,” the voice said, and the world around Elspeth faded into smoke. As the smoke cleared, Elspeth saw a shadowy figure, clad in blackest robes in the fashion of Theros, with ashen skin and talon-like nails. The face was the true nightmare, however. Above the upper lip, the figure’s head simply disappeared, replaced with a steady stream of wispy smoke that dissipated into the air around him, or her, Elspeth could not tell. Ebony horns rose from the curtailed face and curved to frame the smoke. As the dreamscape sharpened into finer details, the figure walked around the metal room. _

Elspeth was back on Mirrodin, trapped in the center of a Phyrexian citadel. The only door was barred, and a battering sound beyond foretold the approach of the monsters they were here to stop. She felt the tightening around her legs, and glanced down to find that Koth had sealed her in the ground. “You’re leaving,” the Vulshok geomancer told her matter of factly. “I can set off the device myself. This is my home. I owe it, to see it through to the end.” He looked back at his newfound ally. “Bring Mirrodin’s warning to the Multiverse, Elspeth Tirel. Don’t let us have fallen in vain.”

The pounding on the door intensified, and Elspeth glanced to the mysterious figure, who was looking intently at the buckling metal plates. “Get away from there! The Phyrexians will kill you, or worse!”

The figure’s head tilted. “Phyrexians? Still in the Multiverse?” Elspeth watched a slow smile spread across what was left of their face. “I’ve heard stories, horror tales, to be honest, but I thought they had been eradicated. The devastation they wrought on Dominaria alone…” The figure turned abruptly to face Elspeth. She found their lack of eyes disturbing, but somehow felt like she was being stared down. “When was this? You weren’t alive for the destruction of Phyrexia, were you?”

Elspeth shook her head, wondering at how Koth refused to react to this interloper. “A few months ago, maybe a year.” The smile widened. “Now get away from that door! You have no idea what they’re capable of!”

_ “Oh, no,” _ Ashiok said, and their voice echoed around the chamber as they dissipated into smoke,  _ “I imagine I have much to learn…” _

Suddenly, Elspeth was in Nyx, Xenagos slain, Ajani beside her, Heliod barring their way back to Theros. “My champion,” he said, his voice filling her ears. “Give me my blade.” This was not the Heliod she remembered, though. Heliod had been pure brightness, shining leader of the Theran pantheon. Before her stood a monstrous figure, identical to the god but ugly, vicious, and cruel, the manifestation of the true Heliod. In his hands, a darkened version of Khrusor, the Sunspear glowed with ominous light. The charred spear oozed with ichor, and was a drastic counterpoint to her brilliant Godsend as it flew from her weakened grasp.

Elspeth felt Godsend pierce her, just as painfully as it had the first time, and she cried out as she had before. This time, though, she remained conscious. In her suffering, she reached for the handle of her spear, but it shattered at her touch. Heliod’s eyes were pitch dark now, and his mouth twisted into a taunting grin. Elspeth stumbled forward and grabbed at the dark Khrusor for balance just as she awoke.

~~

Elspeth woke with a yell, the sound piercing the otherwise tranquil Ilysian night. It might have been her imagination, but she thought she saw a wisp of smoke retreating through the open window. She was drenched in cold sweat, and the silken blankets had twisted themselves around her limbs. As she struggled to extricate herself, she realized her hand was gripped tight on something cold and hard. She pulled back as smoke began to billow from beneath the blankets, but as she jumped from the bed the smoke dissipated.

Elspeth ripped the blankets off the bed, and there was a sharp clang as something hit the wooden floor. It was the dark Khrusor from her dreams, pulled from her nightmares. Elspeth reached out for the weapon, and as her fingers brushed the darkened metal, memories flooded her mind, nightmares from Mirrodin, and Grixis, and even older memories, flashes of horrors from a plane she had forced herself to forget, horrors from her home.

Heliod was a cruel god, but he was a threat only to Theros. Phyrexia was still out there, waiting on who knew how many planes, eager to terrorize and convert as much of the Multiverse as it could. Theros had been a distraction for Elspeth, a reprieve from the horrors of her past. She knew now that she could not outrun her past. She knew that Koth had not forced her to flee so that she could live in fear for the rest of her life. Koth would fight as long as he lived. Elspeth decided then that she would fight beyond life, beyond death.

Elspeth gripped the weapon, no longer the Sunspear. “Shadowspear,” she murmured, and the name sounded right. A bastardization, but a proper one. She focused herself and allowed her mind to open itself to the endless Multiverse beyond Theros, willing herself to planeswalk away. 

She stayed where she was.

Planeswalking had always been difficult for Elspeth, and it had been months since she last traversed the Blind Eternities, so she tried again. She could feel that tumultuous energy, the roiling cataclysmic crucible from which planes emerged, but it felt diminished, as if she were standing across a wide room from a furnace. The heat was there, but faint. 

Elspeth glanced around the room, then out the window at quiet, slumbering Ilysia.  _ It must be the Underworld, _ she thought.  _ Too far from the surface to simply ‘walk away. _ She would need to make her way up, through the layers of the Theran hell, to cross Athreos’s river before she could return to her greater quest. She had no idea which path would lead her out, but she knew staying here would accomplish nothing.

Elspeth hefted the Shadowspear. This time, she would make her way without the blessing of a god.


	4. Chapter 3: Vulnerable

**Chapter 3: Vulnerable**

Heliod stood on a cliff overlooking the crashing waves. He took the form of a tall man, garbed in sunlight, long raven hair twinkling with stars. He looked out over the horizon and smiled, seeing his dominion encompassing the rest of Theros. The skies were a piercing blue, and the dance of the stars through Nyx could just be made out against the sunlight. Heliod liked to think that the sun blinded those below to lesser aspects of Nyx; its majesty, and his, caused all else to fade in comparison.

As his gaze swept the heavens, however, his smile faltered. He scowled at the band of starless sky that remained as a reminder of the recent battle between his once-champion and the god-usurper. The blade that could kill a god had torn the fabric of Nyx in that fight, spilling out its divine radiance and snuffing out the twinkling of the stars around it. Heliod felt satisfaction in the fact that he had been the one to shatter the cursed weapon, and to condemn the mortal who had wielded it, but he disliked seeing the remnants of that conflict, especially in his domain.

Heliod gripped Khrusor, the Sunspear, tighter. This petty war with Purphoros had unleashed that weapon, so insultingly called  _ Godsend _ , into the mortal world. His brother had thought to challenge his rightful place at the head of the pantheon, and Kruphix had appropriately punished him for his impudence. Although, if truth be told, the Silence that Kruphix had enacted on the gods was what had allowed that wretched upstart to ascend to godhood. Had Heliod been allowed to react without the need of a mortal conduit, Xenagos would have been smote from existence, and Kruphix’s consequences be damned.

Such ridiculousness, a mortal aspiring to the title of godhood. Heliod felt a tingle in the back of his mind, a memory long lost, and suddenly he found himself thinking of Phenax, the shifty god of deception. How was it that Heliod did not recall Phenax being present for the battle against the Titans, back in the infancy of Theros? Heliod frowned as he searched for those first memories, for the moment he had erupted in glorious light to fulfill the prayers of the pitiful mortals of Theros. The gods did not like to think about it, did not dare speak it aloud, but there was a genesis, a first time they existed here, and before which they must not have been.

In his earliest memories, Heliod recalled the conflict between the Titans and his siblings. He recalled the ferocity with which those monsters had fought, desperate to cling to this world, and the conviction and certainty with which they had responded, not willing to allow these beasts to continue their butchery of the world. Heliod tilted his head. Not only did he not see Phenax in his mind’s eye, he saw an entirely  _ different _ sibling, the protean god of amnesia, who had fought alongside him to banish the Titans.

Heliod watched, almost passively, as his memories flashed by his eyes. He saw the years that passed, and watched as this sibling, unskilled at inspiring the devotion of the mortals, simply faded from existence. He then recalled the moment when a lowly mortal first pierced the veil of death, and became the first of the Returned.  _ That _ was Phenax. His fellow dead had glorified him after that, had put their faith in him as they made their own way out of the Underworld, and buoyed by that devotion, Phenax had ascended to become the god of deception.

“Impossible,” Heliod mumbled, lost in reverie and failing to see the wisps of smoke disappearing into the Blind Eternities behind him. How had he not recalled the ascension of Phenax? How could he have thought himself so secure in this crowded pantheon? In a world where the love and fear and devotion of the masses sustained you, how could he bear to risk his very existence by sharing the mortals of Theros with his siblings?

Decision hardened the features of Heliod’s face as he turned his gaze from the horizon. He found his quarry quickly; those who were blessed to hear the voices of the gods were always within their reach. Heliod shook his head at the sight of the Returned wandering the lands of Theros. Such folly, for his champion to have cast her lot with Erebos, his insidious brother. When she had offered herself in exchange for Daxos’s life, she had said nothing of his spirit, and now his body stumbled through forests and fields, that hideous golden mask covering his blank face, searching for the woman he had so foolishly loved.

Still, there was no other mortal Heliod could think of to complete the task he had in mind. While living, Daxos had been the strongest of his disciples, although at times his conviction had wavered. Heliod now blamed this on the interloper, Elspeth. This time, Heliod would be sure to bind Daxos to himself to ensure his cooperation.

Heliod let his form slip from this imposing man-shape and became a pillar of white fire, stretching into Nyx above. He found it easier to focus when his vision was not limited to simple eyes, and he quickly found the soul of Daxos, flitting through the plane; it had been separated from its body for such a short period of time, it had had no opportunity to express itself.

Heliod reached out and plucked the wispy spirit from the cobbled street it had been floating on, and thrust it into the dead flesh wandering the forest. Immediately, life burst forth in Daxos’s chest, his mouth opened to breathe for the first time in months as the golden mask fell with a dull clang to the leaf-strewn ground. Where no eyes had been before, now his lids flew open, and tears streamed down his cheeks as the stars of Nyx graced his sight.

Before the mortal could get a hold of himself, however, Heliod reached out and touched Daxos’s heart, allowing some infinitesimal portion of himself to fill the risen man’s soul. Heliod watched as parts of his body began to fade and become interspersed with stars - the telltale sign of the Nyxborn. Daxos was no longer merely flesh and blood; he was a product of divine hands, his second life a gift from the god of the sun.

More than that, Daxos had been crafted, not with the primordial essence of Nyx itself, but with Heliod’s own being. Above the rest of the god’s creations, Daxos was now perched on the threshold of mortal and divine; a demigod.

~~

Behind his starry eyes, Daxos wept for Elspeth, not knowing what had become of her. He rebelled at this divine possession, but his body remained still, awaiting his orders. He was Heliod’s now, more so than he ever had been before.

The pillar of light appeared before Daxos, now, and he knelt, picking up his fallen mask. “Blessed by the sun, I return to you that which was stolen away.” Stolen? Yes, he had been killed - murdered - in cold blood. His thoughts felt sluggish, as if he was pushing away his memories.

“Your life was cut short by my false champion, Elspeth, who then bartered with Erebos to rend you from your spirit and send your body to wander aimlessly for all eternity.” Daxos felt his heart sink. Elspeth had done this to him? Suddenly, he saw her standing over him, a silver skewer in one hand as she drove it into his neck. Tears poured from his eyes a second time. It was true. Heliod was telling the truth.

“Of course I speak the truth to you, my chosen one. Your thoughts cannot be hidden from me now; you are a part of me.” This worried Daxos for a moment, then he felt the fuzzy light of Heliod filling his mind. How could he have ever thought his dissension could have led to anything good? Heliod was his god, and through him was Daxos’s only path to peace.

“You see now that it is through me that true meaning can be found. Unfortunately, many have yet to learn this fact. Those of Meletis focus too much of their energies on appeasing my siblings.” Daxos felt a righteous anger welling up inside his chest. How dare those mere mortals slight his god? “Go, now. You know what you must do.” Daxos did. He tore a strand from his robe, affixed his mask to his forearm as a shield, and drew his shortsword from its scabbard. He was blessed by the sun, and now he would bring true dawn to Meletis.


	5. Chapter 4: Strands Untwined

**Chapter 4: Strands Untwined**

Klothys felt her fury like a summer storm within her, hot and violent and sudden. Though her eyes were covered with a blindfold of her own hair, she was not blind. The strands of fate were known to her at all times, intimately revealing the destinies of each person on Theros. She had watched with morbid curiosity as the first of the dead had returned to the land of the living, so long ago, but allowed them to continue. The lives of these mortals were so bright, so volatile, that they could willingly shift the path of their futures. It was a talent Klothys secretly wished for, as she was mere centuries into her eternal watch at the gate of the loathed Titans. If only the god of fate could alter her own…

Each Returned that shambled out of Athreos’s chamber left a shimmer in the tapestry of Theros’s history, little disruptions that, if she were being honest, added texture and intrigue to the whole, added some mortal imperfection to the mix. Across those centuries, all the Returned who had found their way from death did not amount to the turmoil Klothys now witnessed, and the cause was unthinkable - her own siblings, deities in their own rights, were resurrecting the dead themselves, not through the immutable will of mortality, but at the behest of their own inflated senses of ego. 

She had shuddered as Erebos had plucked the newly-cold body of Heliod’s oracle from his domain, but such things were not entirely unheard of - Erebos was known to forge insidious contracts with those foolish enough to treat with him.

What happened next had nearly broken Klothys. Heliod had plucked the wayward soul of the mortal and reunited it with his body - again, not the first time this had happened, though never so directly and at the hands of a god - and then he had merged his own essence with the mortal, forging an entirely new being, with the willfulness of a mortal, the makings of a Nyxborn, and the strength of a god. Klothys had never felt physically ill before, but the loom of fate had practically jumped in her hands as this single act caused the twining of destiny’s strands to restructure themselves immediately, artificially,  _ wrongly _ .

It was not even relevant to Klothys that destruction and conflict followed in the wake of this newly formed demigod. His very existence threatened to tear at the fabric of Theros.

For the first time since her voluntary internment, Klothys determined to act. She sat back in her personal prison and began planning, keeping the spark of her anger warm in her chest. After all, she had practiced endless patience for centuries; she could wait a bit longer to rein in her sibling and tie these monstrosities back into destiny’s weave.


	6. Chapter 5: Elspeth Rises

**Chapter 5: Elspeth Rises**

Elspeth did not know how many days had passed since she left Ilysia. The first thing she realized upon her escape was that the sun and stars that lit the blessed resting place of heroes could not possibly exist; she had been deep underground, and after she found her way into the wider Underworld, there was nothing to differentiate one day from the next.

This came with mixed benefits, as she no longer felt the need to rest (she supposed, as a dead person, it was not entirely necessary anymore) but felt constantly on edge, wary of whatever danger lurked around the next corner. For the first time, she understood the crazed hostility so often found in the undead. Being forced to constantly fight for your survival would drive anything to the brink of sanity.

It had not been easy to slip from the clutches of Ilysia. Her fellow heroes did not seem to understand her questions as she asked about an exit; who in their right mind would look to leave the final reward for those who had proven themselves among the best individuals in the history of Theros?  _ Maybe I’m not in my right mind, _ Elspeth thought grimly,  _ but it’s not of my own doing. And I’ll have justice by my own hand. _

The dryads who tended the fields surrounding Ilysia had been more responsive, but frustratingly evasive. “How are we brought here?” “All who deserve Ilysia’s rest will find it eventually.” “Has anyone been kicked out from this place?” “Deserving such a punishment is antithetical to the very ideal required to be here in the first place.” “Why does the sky remain so still, when on the surface it was ever in flux, ever showing the movements of the gods?” This had caused a momentary hesitation, but the dryad she had been able to corner eventually smiled and answered, “How do you know this isn’t simply the other side of the screen of Nyx?”  _ Because I’ve been there, _ Elspeth grumbled inwardly, but it was no use. The dryads had answered some of her questions, but left many more. 

Eventually, it was pure luck mixed with determination that allowed Elspeth to discover a hidden path that wound through the seemingly endless fields of golden grain. One moment she was following a circuitous route through the stalks of wheat, the next she was standing in a dank corridor, carved from wet stone, the only source of light an ambient dimness that permeated the air. Though she didn’t know it at the time, several of the heroes from Ilysia had taken to following her around, whether as a result of boredom or interest in the crazy questions she had been asking, and they had spread the word that the newest hero had found a way out of this paradise.

Now, Elspeth was flanked by a handful of those heroes, once content to lounge and relax for the rest of eternity, but now were determined to taste adventure and meaning once again. At first, she had been hesitant to lead them; the last time she had been in charge of others, she had guilted herself into healing a mortal wound of her squire, leading the knights of Bant to glorify her and treat her with undue reverence. Shortly after, she had left the shards of Alara; Elspeth did not handle idolatry well.

These heroes were not simple soldiers, however. They respected Elspeth for seeing through the (admittedly enticing) lie they had been trapped in for years, but they did not glorify her, did not exalt her. Among their number were minotaurs and tritons, centaurs and humans, fearsome warriors and esteemed philosophers. They might have earned rest, but they desired the constant change of life once more. Who was Elspeth to deny them?

She knew, of course, about the Returned, the undead who made their way out of the Underworld and into the lands of the living. Surely, there was some route she could follow to achieve the same thing. And so, Elspeth had set out, searching the corners of the Underworld for a passage into the realm of Athreos, and from there back to the surface of Theros.

The Underworld was not a welcoming domain, however. Monstrosities and nightmarish aberrations roamed the twilit hellscape, hunting and constantly hungry. With her shadowy spear, Elspeth slew each beast they came upon, and when there were packs of the foul things some of the other heroes would assist, though they had not brought any weapons. As each monster died at her feet, she held aloft the Shadowspear and faced her followers. “I was Heliod’s champion, and he struck me down. This twisted spear is a more apt depiction of the so-called god of the sun; it is more real than Khrusor. Heliod and his spear do not deserve your devotion.”

At first, most of the gathered heroes scoffed at her proclamation; they had no reason to scorn the gods. With each victory, however, they became less certain. This woman was clearly skilled, and her words rang with truth. Was it possible the god of the sun could have done as she said?


	7. Chapter 6: God's Lament

**Chapter 6: God’s Lament**

Ephara wept.

She had been aware of Daxos when he had lived, had been fond of his presence in her favorite city of Meletis. Though he was reserved, he embodied virtue, and she watched as other young men became better people under his tutelage.

She had been upset when he was slain, though her gaze was not on him when it happened. She heard the whisperings of her muses, the reports in the acropoli of the city. Chaos outside Akros, a victory turned to ash, celebration to slaughter, and countless dead. Among them, Daxos.

Ephara had not allowed herself to become involved with individuals, not like her sister Nylea had. Still, she comforted her verdant sister as she wept for the injustice of Daxos’s demise. Ephara appreciated the sentiment of Nylea’s sorrow, if not the actual emotion.

Now, as Meletis was sacked, she understood sorrow.

As the temples in the city were set ablaze or pulled down to their foundations, Ephara was acutely aware of the suffering of the citizens, the children she cared for. Many died, and those who survived grieved. And the perpetrator of this grave injustice was a former denizen: Daxos.

Returned from the grave, the once-mortal shed the light of Heliod now, and it was clear the sun god’s will was carried out through his actions. Ephara could not comprehend why her brother was intent on razing the city she adored, and as she felt the walls and buildings crumble, she fell inward upon herself. Thought became difficult as the suffering of her people threatened to overwhelm her.

Across the plane of Theros, the rest of the gods felt her anguish, and one by one they returned to Nyx. There would be a discussion to shake the heavens.

~~

There was a flash of light as Kruphix let his influence be known. At once, the voices of the other gods died down, except for Ephara, who continued her quiet wailing. “We all know,” Kruphix began, his voice echoing within their minds, “that Heliod’s assault on Meletis must be denounced. The actions of his demigod are reflections of his own purpose. This does not, however, condone the actions of Erebos, Nylea, Thassa, and Purphoros. One ill-thought creation is not righted by four similarly unnatural beings.”

“He has declared war on all of us,” Nylea interrupted, stepping forward boldly. “The temples of our brethren were ransacked, their followers maimed or killed.” Iroas and Karametra nodded. “Who knows where his tool will head next? To the shrines the minotaurs keep for you, brother?” She looked to Mogis, who snuffed and shook his horned head. “To the caves where your oracles peer into the future, sister?” Pharika’s ever-present snake companions hissed. “We acted in defense to the aggression of one who always thought himself above us,” she continued. “Our demigods are not beings created with paranoia and crusade at their core. They are our fury and protection, and they will snuff out Heliod’s indiscretion.”

The other gods clamored in agreement, the lesser gods exclaiming that they, too, should be allowed to pick mortals to defend their followers as demigods. There was another flash of light, and all grew quiet, save Ephara.

“Would that I could blanket the world in another Silence,” Kruphix lamented, “but these children of yours are beyond my ability to censor; they would continue to be your manifestations on Theros.” His voice became a solid certainty in their minds. “But there will be no more demigods. Do not subvert this. There are fates worse than Silence.”

Having spoken his piece, Kruphix faded into twinkling mist, off to the edges of the world once more. The remaining gods lingered, grumbling among themselves. It was decided that the four demigods would continue to track Daxos, for the good of all the gods.

“Will your champion do what needs to be done, sister?” Thassa asked, drifting over to Nylea. “It was no secret that you harbored interest in Heliod’s oracle.”

Nylea’s fury drove her sister back. “That monster is more our brother than the man who had the body before. Heliod pulled Daxos from this world, as much as Erebos. Renata will not hesitate to right this wrong.”

Phenax appeared before Erebos as the conversation died down again. “Creating your new pet must have cost you greatly, brother, or your hatred for Heliod must have blinded you.” Erebos turned his dead glare on his lesser brother, not bothering to respond. “Surely you must have noticed the rifts opening from the Underworld to the surface. So convenient, considering your Tymaret commands the dead, for so many fresh bodies to be expelled from your domain.”

Without waiting for a response, Phenax faded in a flash of twilight. The other gods eyed Erebos, who stood impassively, framed by the surrounding stars.


	8. Chapter 7: Destiny Broken

**Chapter 7: Destiny Broken**

If Klothys had been upset before, she was furious now. One demigod had threatened the fabric of Theros; four more caused Klothys physical pain, their bright essences shining to highlight their impurities among the rest of the world. Not only that, but now her brother was relaxing in his duty to keep the Underworld separated from the realm of the living. Rifts were forming throughout the land, chasms from which undead Returned and fouler things were pouring out into Theros. Klothys had been able to accept the handful of Returned who slipped from destiny’s grasp throughout the years, but the hundreds who were escaping now could only indicate the fraying of fate.

Klothys finally responded. Like her siblings had done for centuries, Klothys reached out for the essence of Nyx, harder to reach at the bottom of the world, but never outside of a god’s grasp, and began molding the starry substance into forms, humanoid beings who would accomplish her goals. She dubbed her Nyxborn destiny weavers, for they were intended to seek out those who fought against their own fates and rethread them into the fabric of the world. As she finished one form, she sent it off, then reached for another handful of stars. Being after being she created, enough to fight back against the hordes of the Returned and the armies of the vile demigods.

She gave them keen vision, to tell the improper threads of fate from the compliant. She gave them the strength to oppose those with wills mighty enough to shift their destinies. She gave them weapons, spears and threads and daggers, tools to cut and shape and sew their prey back into their proper places. She gave them an affinity for the leylines of the world, allowing them to tap into the magic flowing through Theros’s veins and pull what they needed. She knew they would carry out their tasks relentlessly, like the inexorable tide of time, dragging the Returned and other monstrosities from the Underworld back to its dark depths, and putting an end to her brethren’s folly.

There was one rebel Klothys was most concerned with, though. A mere human, recently deceased, gifted a place in Ilysia. To Klothys, the origin of her fate was foreign. She stared in wonder at it, trying to understand how she tied in with other strands, how it seemed to fade from existence at times and at others appear large as life. In Klothys’s mind, she was a renegade, an agent set against destiny. She was leading a band of other heroes through the Underworld, presumably searching for one of the recently opened rifts. To subdue her, Klothys needed a specialized tool.

She toiled for many hours, which became many days, though time was irrelevant at the gate of the Titans. She took this woman’s strand of fate and interwove it with that of her creation. At the end of her toil, Calix stood before her, greatest of the destiny weavers, his very being bent on a singular purpose - drawing Elspeth Tirel back into the fate where she belonged.

“Go,” Klothys commanded. “Bring her back into the pattern.”


	9. Chapter 8: Memory

**Chapter 8: Memory**

The mood of the group was noticeably somber as they passed a hellish sight. They made their way through an ash-coated field, picking their path among countless spears, thrust up from the ground, haphazardly strewn like the toys of a giant’s child. Upon each spear a body was elevated.

The first few skewered bodies they had come across had been still alive, humans and minotaurs and all other manner of mortals writhing silently in place. Elspeth had almost rushed forward to pull them down, but a centaur behind her had laid a hand on her shoulder and shaken his head, not unkindly. “The field of misera,” a minotaur had murmured. As they continued on, the spears and their grisly accompaniments became more numerous, and the faces of the suffering became less expressive, their eyes glazing over.

It was impossible to tell the point at which the bodies became corpses.

Finally, the bodies became discolored, grey apathy seeping up from the cruel ground and draining the color from each body, until these bodies surrounding them now were little more than husks, crumbling statues, hollow monuments to mortal futility.

After too long, a whisper rose from one of the heros as a finger pointed. “Nerono.” Off in the distance, a faint glimmer was the only sign of the ocean of memories, which eroded memory, identity, even the very self, just as waves carved cliff sides. Their plan was to skirt around the edge of Nerono, following the whispered rumors of a rift leading to the surface. Such rumors were rarely reliable, and the rifts had proven themselves fickle, but Elspeth could think of no better ideas.

Elspeth was about to turn to her followers and suggest they begin traveling parallel to the shore when she felt it again. A tug in her abdomen, like a string pulling her spine forward between her lungs. She gritted her teeth and must have tightened her posture, for her heroes began glancing around and hefting the makeshift weapons they had been able to pillage from the dead and dying. “Back already?” one of the humans asked, trying to sound jovial but managing anxiousness.

“Do not place yourselves between us,” Elspeth said, catching her breath and gripping Shadowspear tighter. “He is here for me.”

The heroes murmured their acknowledgement, then one of the men on the fringes called out, his voice piercing the fragile silence of this place. “Nightmares!”

Elspeth groaned, but the sound was swallowed up by the sudden noise of preparation.  _ Both at the same time? _ Her band of heroes had proven its worth time and again against the denizens of the Underworld, but this strange Nyxborn pursuer was much more persistent. To face both at the same time made Elspeth feel exhausted, not that the emotion amounted to much in the Underworld.

It was the nightmares who arrived first, barreling through the forest of impaled statues with no sign of reverence. They truly were nightmarish, twisted fears and horrors given flesh, with variable limbs and gnashing teeth that ached to taste mortal flesh. They scuttled and scurried toward the heroes, some leaping from spearpoint to spearpoint while others slunk between the fallen limbs of the miseras. Some of the nightmares tried to flank the group, but strayed too close to the far-off oceans. Their screeching took on a frantic tone as their limbs began to unravel, horrific smoke twirling away as if it couldn’t quite remember how to stay solid.

Elspeth was not worried about the others. She had seen them fight, and it was clear that they earned their places in Ilysia, even the philosophers among them. Besides, she needed to focus on the ordeal before her. While the nightmares were approaching from behind, she felt a pull from ahead, from the shores of Nerono.  _ How could he be coming from that hazardous wasteland? _

Sure enough, a small figure soon became discernible, slowly growing larger as he ran towards her. As his robes spread out behind him, stars twinkled against his frame, showing him to be one of the gods’ creations, though Elspeth doubted Erebos could concoct such a lively specimen as this, and what other gods dwelt in the Underworld?

As he came close enough to hail, he thrust his own spear into the air, calling a challenge. “Elspeth! I have come once more to remind you of your fate!” Like a streamer, silvery strands flowed from the head of his weapon, trailing a gilt spike, an oversized needle. Elspeth rolled her shoulders to loosen them and set her stance, advancing away from her companions. As the man got into range, she raised her spear to parry the whipping motion of the needle. Elspeth frowned. She had fought this Nyxborn twice already, and he seemed even faster than before, his attacks more refined.

Still, he was no match for her. Elspeth recognized that he was learning from her, emulating what aspects of her fighting style that he could, but for all his strength and speed, he fought with the unrestrained enthusiasm of a new recruit, eager to fight for love and loyalty but missing all the subtler lessons.

As the two finally drew close, Elspeth deftly snagged the sinewy strands in the tines of her spear and yanked, pulling the weapon from his grasp. Unarmed now, he threw himself at her, but she easily caught his chest with the haft of her weapon and flipped him bodily. He landed with a puff of dust next to the discarded weapon.

Elspeth glanced around at her heroes, who were cleaning up the remainder of the nightmares handily. Satisfied that they did not require her assistance, she turned her gaze back to the man on the ground. He lay still, breathing heavily, staring intensely at Elspeth. “Your fate cannot be denied,” he finally managed.

Elspeth frowned. How long had she run from her past? How many times had she fled from leadership, from the risk of her followers finding out what a fraud she was? And how did this man know anything?

“Who are you?” Elspeth responded. “And who do you serve?”

“Calix,” he said as he pulled himself into a sitting position. “I am an agent of fate, molded and commanded by Klothys.”

“Who?” Elspeth asked, but Calix was already leveraging his spear to stand shakily.

“You lead these men and women away from their rightful place. From your rightful place. As long as you continue, I shall oppose you.”

“And as long as you try, I’ll keep knocking you on your ass.” Elspeth was surprised by a sharp laugh. She realized she hadn’t heard laughter since she fled Ilysia.

“I do enjoy our sparring,” Calix confided as he straightened with a wince. “I believe fighting to be the most fulfilling action I have done so far. It will be a pity when you are returned to the pattern, and I can rest.”

Elspeth glanced at the heroes; they were ganging up on the last few nightmares, and in a moment they would flock to her, to make sure she was safe, regardless of her orders. “Klothys - is that the god Xenagos usurped? What do you mean by fate and pattern?” Calix shook his head.

“I know nothing of this Xenagos. I was made a short time ago, and my mistress gifted me only the knowledge I need to complete my task. Apparently, she did not grant me the ability required.” Again he grinned.

Elspeth grunted and extended a hand. “The people I’m with haven’t been very friendly toward the gods recently. You should go before they finish up.”

“This changes nothing,” Calix said as he got to his feet. “The fight will continue. But first, you must understand that the bonds which hold you to the surface have snapped. You are rising to a future that no longer exists.” He gestured, and Elspeth saw a vision pass before her eyes.

Her heart leapt as she saw Daxos, back from the dead! He was simply radiant in the sun’s rays, leading a band of men and women - but no, it was the middle of the night, and still Daxos shone. And he was at the head of a small army, marching through a village and toppling its shrine. Elspeth despaired as she saw the shadow of Heliod looming above her beloved.

Then, all she saw was the Underworld again, and Calix smiling sadly before her. “You see? There is nothing for you there. Go,” he implored, “return to the place of your rest. Or better yet-” His grin returned. “-keep fighting, and allow me to return you personally.”

Elspeth began to respond, but Calix stepped back into a ripple in the air, and then he was gone.

Her companions finally ran up to her, and she waved away their concern - couldn’t they see she was fine? That she had bested this Nyxborn warrior once more? Still, she had not come away unscathed. 

For even though Calix could not possibly have known it, his words had struck a chord within her. Not that she belonged in Ilysia - that was preposterous. Every moment of Elspeth’s life had been spent either fighting against evil or running away from it, looking over her shoulder endlessly as she tried to live a normal life. No, she didn’t belong in Ilysia, or in any part of the Underworld. Nor did she belong on Theros.

There was an enemy she had fought the entirety of her life, one way or another, when she wasn’t running from them.

Phyrexia.

As a child, she had not known the name for the gruesome horrors which had stolen her home from her, slaughtered her family and friends, caused her Planeswalker spark to ignite, sending her tumbling through the Blind Eternities to Theros for the first time. Later, she had learned of the ancient threat that was Phyrexia, no longer present on their own bastardized plane but creeping like frost through the many worlds of the Multiverse. They were still out there, ending the lives of other young girls, toppling towns and cities and planes, and Elspeth had thought she could hide away in Theros, become a part of the pageant directed by the gods, but this had never been her home.

_ Daxos  _ \- Daxos had never been her home, either. He had been a lovely distraction, a fellow soldier in his own way, bound to the cause but with the same feelings of detachment from the fight. Now, Elspeth realized she owed it to the Multiverse, to herself, to continue the fight against the Phyrexians. Theros was a pleasant corner of the Multiverse, when its gods weren’t backstabbing their chosen champions, but this wasn’t where Elspeth could do what she needed to do.

Elspeth gathered her heroes and urged them forward, no longer yearning just for freedom from the Underworld. There were countless planes depending on her. And Elspeth was through with letting others down.


	10. Chapter 9: Furious Rise

**Chapter 9: Furious Rise**

There was an eruption of earth as Klothys broke the surface, bathing in the rays of the sun for the first time in centuries. The sounds of wind blowing through her hair, birds flitting and singing in the skies, even the soft babbling of a river nearby - all were glorious to her ears. All the years she had spent beyond the edge of the Underworld, just as locked away as the Titans, she had had no solace, no reprieve other than the lives she glimpsed from afar, tasting experiences on the web of fate like a spider.  _ If nothing else, _ Klothys thought to herself,  _ at least I will have seen the world I am keeping safe once more. It almost makes this catastrophe worth it. _ She felt, then, the glaring tangles in destiny’s fabric, the five demigods warping the weave of fate.  _ Almost. Still not quite. _

While the demigods were dangerous on their own, it had been the wretched mortal woman -  _ Elspeth _ \- who had brought Klothys past the brink. Bad enough that her special creation had been unable to subdue her. Bad enough that she led a group of shining individuals, each of whom had previously been strong, bright threads in fate’s weave. Bad enough that she spent all her energies on subverting her destiny, on escaping from the Underworld.

Now, this woman had found a way to shift her destiny entirely off the world of Theros.

Klothys was not sure how she had managed it, but Elspeth’s destiny no longer ran parallel to the rest of Theros. If the world’s future were a physical mat, endless strands interwoven and held together, Elspeth now flung herself apart from the fabric, a stray bit of string pulling away from the rest of the knotting, threatening to loosen those strands nearest her. Klothys wondered at what her actions portended, whether fate existed in more than the dimensions she herself envisioned, but there would be time enough to ponder metaphysics when she had resumed her place as the Titans’ jailor.

Klothys allowed herself to grow to many times the size of a human, towering over the trees of the forest in which she had emerged. She turned her blindfolded face to the side, feeling for the heaviest disturbance in the surrounding area. There, she knew, she would find the demigods. A moment later, she turned and began to walk across the green fields. Though her mind raged at Theros’s predicament, her heart soared. The smells, the sounds, the simple freedom of the surface! Klothys would carry out destiny’s demands, as was her duty, but her enjoyment was not mutually exclusive.

As Klothys drew nearer to the disturbance, it was clear she had not been tracking demigods. The horrors ran among the streets of the little town where they had emerged, like nightmares from the deepest mind through a vertical rift, a portal to the Underworld. Klothys gripped her spear, stepping between a pair of buildings. The rush of combat came upon her, then, almost forgotten in the many years since she last fought the Titans and pushed them into their prison. Plunging her thread-trailing blade through rotting flesh, feeling the rebelling fates snap back into place, this must be the satisfaction that sweetened mortal lives.

Klothys swept through the town like an angry storm, felling the Underworld horrors as they fled, and when she was done, the remaining mortals stood, slack jawed and uncomprehending.  _ Who was this strange god? _ “Klothys has saved you, mortals,” she intoned, spreading her arms in benediction. “Follow the proper path through your life, and you need never feel the tug of my needle.”

As she allowed her form to unravel like a half-finished blanket, spilling into the sky, she felt a surge of emotion and power. Was this what her siblings felt each day? It was no wonder Heliod had acted as he had. This could be truly intoxicating.  _ The sooner I return to the Underworld, the better. _ But, if mortals learned of her existence along the way to destiny’s true path, what harm could it cause? Unlike the other gods, Klothys did not serve her own self interests; she was the tool of destiny.  _ And if the gods continue to meddle with destiny, they will feel its fiery rebuke. _


	11. Chapter 10: Sunset

**Chapter 10: Sunset**

Daxos sat against a trunk in a small copse of trees as the sun began to set. He no longer felt exhaustion as he once had, but he was not blind to the needs of his followers. They lounged in the small forest, chatting and eating the fruits from the trees and berries from the bushes. There was an empty area directly around him, though. While some of those in his army had met him in life, he was now beyond them, not quite a god, but certainly no longer a mortal.

It was with interest, then, that Daxos appraised a young man, hardly more than a boy, who ran through the ranks straight to his leader. As the boy caught his breath, Daxos rose, reaching for his shield. At his motion, the laughter died out, sentences cut off prematurely, and most of the gathered men and women half-rose from their repose.

Daxos did not seem surprised when the boy described a large force approaching from their rear, headed by the recently deceased king of Akros, Anax. “He is Returned?” Daxos asked, his voice rolling over the gathered. The boy looked uncomfortable, and Daxos knew the truth. “No. He is as I am, chosen by a god to act out their will.” The boy nodded, glad to be spared needing to liken their fast-approaching enemy to his leader.

Daxos turned from the boy, allowing him to fade back into the group. Daxos fixed his face in his memory; the boy was pure of heart, but unwilling to stand up for himself. He would most likely not survive much longer, and Daxos liked to think those who fell in his service lived on in his memory.

“Friends,” Daxos began, raising his sparkling arms. Though it was midday, his form shone with the brightness of the sun behind him, especially when he addressed his army. Hands were raised to ward of the sudden light, eyes squinted at his splendor - Heliod’s splendor, given human form. “We have done well, bringing Heliod’s justice and light to Meletis and half a dozen smaller towns. All have been purged of the influences of lesser gods, allowing Heliod to shine more brightly among their survivors.” He paused a moment to allow their cheering to die down. “These lesser gods are clearly not pleased. They have managed to dredge up their own defenders, in imitation of what Heliod first managed with me.” He raised his shield arm. “But these others are cheap copies of the strength of the god of the sun! They cling to the falsehood that their gods are equals to the king of the pantheon, but we will relieve them of this misconception!”

Again, Daxos waited for the whooping and cheering to begin to die down before he continued, “Form ranks! Setessa will wait for us to bring their redemption. For now, we will throw Anax and his misguided followers back to the Forge!”

There was a loud roar as the amassed army surged forward, carrying Daxos in a pocket of empty space as they left the small copse for the open plain beyond. After minutes of marching, Daxos had slowly advanced to the front of the loose column, and he was the first to spy the enemy rising over a small hill. Sunlight glinted off a gilded plume atop a bronze helmet, and beneath the helmet Daxos could see eyes lit up with stars. “Anax,” he muttered, not loudly enough for his soldiers to hear. He had met the once-king of Akros, had been present at his final fight with Rhordon the Rageblood. Daxos had died before the king succumbed to his injuries, in the chaos of the victory’s celebration, but it was no surprise to find him here. The king had been a fiery individual in life; it was easy to see why Purphoros would have selected him as his demigod. 

Anax no doubt saw Daxos, as well, for he raised his smoldering axe up high and seemed to yell. The distant scream was magnified as a horde of soldiers poured over the hill after their leader. Daxos turned to his army, perfectly calm. He was pleased to see they held themselves well, not quite fearless, as that would be irrational, but ready to lay down their lives for their god. “For the glory of the sun,” Daxos said clearly, and his voice carried above the approaching war cries. His followers repeated the manta, then began to run across the field toward the oncoming enemy.

Daxos leapt ahead of them all, first by a few feet, then ten, then fifty. He met with Anax while their armies were still hundreds of feet apart, and the piercing sound of Anax’s axehead on Daxos’s shield galvanized both sides into a headlong sprint. “Nothing personal, oracle,” Anax grunted through gritted teeth. “Purphoros decrees that you must die, and your army pay the price for all the pillaging you’ve done.” He spun away, readying for another attack.

“Pillaging would be your domain,” Daxos replied, lunging forward on the last word. As Anax batted the blow aside, he continued, “We merely educate the masses as to the true nature of the divine.”

Anax took a step back and laughed. “Heliod truly has you in his grip, you poor bastard. And after what he did to your little companion, too!”

Daxos’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but he met the oncoming assault with parries and ripostes of his own. By now, the armies had met and seemed to hack away at each other, so undignified were their motions compared to their commanders’ dance.

When the fight brought them in close again, Daxos held the axe with his blade. “What lies are you spouting, Anax?”

A loud laugh tore from the king’s throat. “Of course! Heliod wouldn’t have told you what happened to Elspeth!”

Daxos felt anger rising up in him. “I know she killed me,” he spat, “I know she betrayed Heliod.”

Anax refused to pull away. “Not the way I heard it. Seems your  _ god _ has a penchant for slaying his champions after they accomplish their tasks. I wonder what he plans to do with you?”

Conflict raged in Daxos’s mind, but before he could respond, a cry went up from the east. He spared a glance over the heads of the struggling armies and his heart sank.

A second force was approaching from their flank, and the last rays of sunlight glinted golden off their faces, hinting at masks matching the one Daxos had strapped to his arm. “Returned,” he muttered, and Anax’s laughter seemed far away. Daxos had faith in Heliod, but his army could not stand against two equal forces.

Daxos shoved forward with his shield, catching Anax off his guard. The demigod went flying over the heads of the soldiers nearby, and Daxos’s voice rang out, “Retreat! To the Setessan border!”

Confusion swept like wildfire through his troops. Retreat? They had fought with solidarity for these past weeks, never backing down, filled with the glory of Heliod. How could they stop now? Daxos saw this and realized they could not disentangle themselves in time. His faithful army would not escape.  _ How could Heliod allow this? _

He didn’t have time to think. He didn’t have time to rally his troops. The Returned were already sprinting across the open field, evidence that Tymaret, the damned king of the Returned, was leading them. Daxos turned and fled, leaving his flabbergasted followers, his faithful soldiers, to be cut down by Anax’s horde.

If Heliod could allow his chosen army to fail, then what else could he have done?

Daxos reached the treeline without incident, and only paused a moment to turn around. To his surprise, a few dozen of his soldiers had followed him from the battle. The rest were being slaughtered between the two armies. Daxos looked away and continued into the forest, feeling his world shattering.


	12. Chapter 11: Shatter the Skies

**Chapter 11: Shatter the Skies**

Memnos was excited. Father spent weeks at a time out at sea when he was a boy, and today was the first time he was allowed to tag along. Their village was small, and fishing was their main source of food and trade. Father had always been a hero in his eyes, and now Memnos would learn his family’s trade.

Memnos had been practicing his knots, and was able to help Father untie the boat as they pushed off from the pier. Now, he sat at the bow, untangling the nets. Father was barking at the two young men who helped him, teaching them to steer and read the waves, when Memnos felt a tap on his head. The young boy looked up, expecting to see Father grinning over him, but instead a dark, fat rain cloud hovered directly overhead. Memnos tilted his head. It had been sunny as they pushed off, a totally clear sky, and while Father had many times taught him that weather was as fickle as a god, this cloud had appeared from nowhere. 

Immediately, Memnos’s first feeling was excitement. One of his favorite stories from Father involved the one time he had glimpsed Thassa, in a terrible storm that nearly sank his ship and left the shore flooded for days. He always began the story with the sudden way the storm had appeared, clouds framed with stars chasing a fiery stag across the skies. Memnos looked for a fiery stag, even a starry shadow in the cloud, but could find none.

Still, there was something foreboding about the cloud. Memnos called out, “Papa!” but Father was already looking up. He turned to respond to his son, but his eyes rose, up and up and up, and then he screamed.

Memnos turned around just in time to see a giant hand, larger even than a cyclops, larger than a mountaintop, composed of matted seaweed and dragging a chain, with links the size of a house. Then, the hand plunged into the sea, and the resulting wave knocked the impressive fishing vessel aside as if it were flotsam.

~~

Further inland, Daxos was at the head of the broken remnants of his army when the ground began to shake. He was not sure where he was leading them, only that it was far away, and that if he lingered the other demigods would be hot on his trail. They had skirted the edge of Setessa and began making their way across the empty plains again, though Daxos was not able to give them any direction. Some of the soldiers had attempted to speak to him, to ask him something, to find out what Heliod had meant, sending the armies of Purphoros and Erebos to break them.

Daxos could only shake his head, could only stare into the distance as he once had. As a child he had been a mute, unfocused on the world around him, attuned only to the cosmic dance of Nyx. Now, Daxos was blind to that, as well. He drew himself inwards, unable to reconcile his devotion to Heliod with the shattering of his army, and unwilling to revisit the painful memories of his death, and even more painful memories of the woman who killed him.

Luckily for Daxos, the arrival of the Titan spared him from these inner thoughts.

As the ground began to shake, huge clods of earth flew into the sky a mere hundred feet from the clustered army. Pulled from his daze, Daxos called out to warn his soldiers, but the words died in his mouth as Kroxa rose from the ground. The Titan was many stories tall, taller than Polukranos had been, taller than any giant Daxos had ever seen, taller than he had ever witnessed Heliod himself to be. It was not just large, however.

Kroxa was vaguely man-shaped, with mottled grey skin and long limbs attached to a stout body. In the middle of that body, a hellish maw opened, glowing red with almost tangible hunger, like a forge into which all the world must eventually go. Once Daxos could tear his eyes from that jagged hole, however, he noticed wounds covering the Titan’s body - only they were not wounds, they were mouths, lined with rows and rows of teeth, gnashing, biting, wailing mouths that dripped saliva and filled the air with grinding. The lucky soldiers were not able to make out the monstrosity’s face, but Daxos could see clearly the poorly formed head. He could see the way the mouth opened wider than any jaw would allow. He could see the rows of teeth spreading throughout the maw. And he could see how both eyes and nostrils were smaller copies of that nightmarish mouth.

Daxos still had not found his voice when the horrible, sightless gaze fell upon his small army. He was rooted to the spot as Kroxa reached a long arm down to swipe up a handful of soldiers. He could not look away as he watched a smaller mouth on one of the fingers start tearing into the young boy whose face Daxos would never forget. That boy’s screams filled Daxos’s ears, yet he could not cover them.

It was not until Kroxa reached down a second time, its hand empty, that Daxos felt himself untether. He ran from the Titan, calling to his men and women to scatter, which they already had been doing. He ran, himself, glancing back once or twice to be sure the Titan was not following him. 

Once, when he looked back, he saw something unbelievable. A god, half as tall as this behemoth, was striding across the plains, a strange spear in her hands. She wore a mantle around her shoulders, and her pure white hair was draped across it, and down through the tip of the spear, and it was tied to a long blade she held in her other hand. The hair fell like a blindfold across her eyes, and she stood with might and power before this monstrosity and she smiled.

Daxos did not recognize this god, could not fathom that he would never have heard of her, but he was beyond worrying over such details. To him, this god was simply a barrier to hide behind, to trust in to keep the horrible being occupied while he ran, for miles and weeks and the rest of his life if he must.

Daxos barely spared another thought for his army as he ran, his head filled with abject terror, but in one corner of his mind, the screaming face of a boy was etched.

Behind Daxos, Klothys stood before Kroxa. “I had thought you and your brethren slept more soundly,” she taunted, sizing him up behind the blindfold. “Centuries you slept, and immediately after I leave my post you rise to the surface!”

In response, Kroxa roared at her, a rumbling like all the stomachs in all the world clamoring for food. Klothys readied her spear. “Your destiny is to lie beneath the surface once more, and we shall repeat our duty to put you there.”

Kroxa reached a giant hand toward the god, but cried out as a glowing arrow shattered against his skin. Beyond the distant hills, Nylea stood stock still, a second arrow already nocked against her bow. Two pillars of fire tore from the starry sky, and the twin gods Mogis and Iroas emerged from them, minotaur and centaur, each charging at the Titan. “Come, brothers,” Klothys called, “let us fight together once more!”

~~

On the other side of the world, Heliod stood in thought. He saw all that happened beneath the sky, and as such was already aware that his sister, long interred below even the Underworld, had come to undo his actions.  _ It’s all falling apart, _ Heliod thought, but then he shook himself. He was the god of the sky, with all the rest of Theros beneath him. He would bring the gods to their knees and have them beg his forgiveness for this folly, for their attempts at combating his will.

_ But haven’t they succeeded? _ Yes… Yes, it was true that his chosen, his Daxos, had been crushed beneath the combined might of Tymaret and Anax. But still, it was more than physical strength and sheer numbers which had undone the demigod. And now that Heliod was looking for it, he found the link, the thread that had pulled Daxos from him. He traced the twine and found the ever-blasted mortal, Elspeth.

_ But for her to be calling so strongly to him… _ She must be rising, must be coming back from the Underworld. Heliod’s beautiful face set into a frown. Mortals at times escaped from Erebos’s grasp, but rarely so soon after death. If this interloper, this  _ Planeswalker _ was to claw free from the Underworld, Heliod would simply need to make sure she fell back into the pits of the damned. With her out of the way, Daxos would be his once more, and the rest of the pantheon would crumble.

And this time, no more Ilysia. Heliod would make sure Elspeth was relegated to the most putrid corner of Erebos’s domain he could find.


	13. Chapter 12: Elspeth Conquers Death

**Chapter 12: Elspeth Conquers Death**

Elspeth was dead. 

This did not stop her from leading a revolution, a veritable army of souls and Returned and heroes from Ilysia. Through her trials, she had attracted the attentions of many monsters, many horrors, and many beasts, but also the admiration of her followers, both new and old. She felt their faith in her like a wellspring of energy, an intoxicating heady rush that she was careful to avoid tapping into. Instead, she fed this devotion into her dark spear, repeating to them with each obstacle they overcame that Heliod’s days were numbered; she held the true Khrusor.

As her army had grown, she had gathered rumors and clues, and now, with the combined intellect of the geniuses who followed her, she was ready to find a rift.

There had been no noticeable pattern to the rifts before, but as time went on and confirmed cases were discovered, a cycle became clear. Now, Elspeth was almost to a likely site where the next rift would appear. The last few pilgrimages had been fruitless, but Elspeth felt confident about this next site. If faith could form the gods, why not a rift out of the underworld?

Elspeth glanced at one of her heroes as they approached a bend in one of the rivers that fed into Nerono. The centaur looked down at the clay tablet she had been scribbling on, then nodded back to her. Elspeth took a deep breath and tightened her grip on the Shadowspear. If so-called-destiny was in any way reliable…

“Elspeth!”

_ Maybe there  _ is _ something to this fate thing after all. _ Elspeth turned to see Calix walking through the large group of Returned and dead. They had fought more than a dozen times, now, and the army was certain that the Nyxborn posed no threat to their leader. Regardless, the laws of single combat demanded they not interfere, and if one thing was certain, it was that this Calix was hellbent on his rivalry with Elspeth.

“Calix,” Elspeth responded, lifting her spear. “You were almost too late. I fear we must leave this land for brighter pastures.”

He grinned as he reached the widening space around his quarry. “Fate is ordained. It does not care for your perception of time. What will be, will be.”

Their audience grew deathly quiet as they circled each other. As each time before, Calix moved first. He stepped forward, tossing his spear towards Elspeth. She readied herself to parry the incoming projectile, but as she began to move her blade Calix pulled back on the thread that had been trailing in his hand. The flying spear stopped in midair, then returned to the Nyxborn’s grasp.

Before she could launch a counterattack, he was circling her again, tossing the sharp needle that trailed at the end of his thread. Again, Elspeth readied herself to entangle the thread in the Shadowspear’s tines, but the needle was withdrawn as soon as it got close. This time, though, the needle began to swirl around her body. Elspeth glanced back to Calix - only to find he was gone, leaving a shimmering afterimage punctuated by starlight.

She began to twist around, and just barely managed to raise the haft of her spear in time to deflect the incoming strike. Even so, the gilded tip ripped through her side, easily opening up her armor and grazing the skin beneath. Elspeth let forth a burst of magic and felt her muscles responding as she leapt backwards, and five feet in the air.

She felt, more than heard, the murmurs that erupted in the crowd as his strike landed. Twenty-one times they had sparred, and this was the first time Calix had managed to land a blow. Still, Elspeth found a grim smile on her face as her breathing steadied. Calix had grown to be a respectable foe over the past few weeks. But the Multiverse was waiting for her.

Elspeth darted forward, extending the Shadowspear as she neared the Nyxborn. She had the satisfaction of watching his eyes widen at her increased speed, but then he was fading again, shimmering out of existence, redirecting his fate so that he existed in a different place at that exact moment.

But Elspeth could feel his fate shift, could feel the incessant tug from her core to Calix shift, ever so slightly. She stepped once and pivoted, tossing the Shadowspear without a glance.

The sharp intake of breath from the members of the crowd who still breathed was like a gentle wind. Elspeth turned to see Calix on the rocky ground, his robe pinned with the Shadowspear, his own weapon pulled from his grasp. The grin was still wide on his face. “It looks like you don’t ignore fate as much as I thought.”

Elspeth would have responded, but at that moment a crimson line appeared a few dozen feet away, widening until it was ten feet across and thirty high. The rift was open. Elspeth walked over to where the Nyxborn lay and, with a yank, freed the spear from his cloak. “Perhaps you just don’t understand my fate as completely as you suspect.” With that, she turned back to the rift, to see Heliod stepping through.

The god of the sun stood a full head taller than the tallest centaur among the group, and he shed a warm brilliance that drove the omnipresent damp and gloom of the Underworld into the furthest corners. A wreath of laurels crowned his brow, and in his hands was Khrusor, the shining twin to the Shadowspear. His golden eyes quickly found Elspeth and rested on her, ignoring the rest of the mortals present. He remained silent.

Elspeth had thought that when she next faced her murderer, she would feel the thrill of fear, a flashback to the moment when the Godsend had pierced her heart and doomed her to die. Instead, she felt a cold resolve, a frigid heat that burned within her heart. While the rest of her followers cowered, Elspeth stood defiant. They had never had to face a god; Elspeth had already slain one; and so was unafraid. She gripped the Shadowspear tighter and took one step forward.

Heliod took this as his cue. “Elspeth, my wayward champion,” he began, his voice booming and echoing even in this wide open area of the Underworld, “you have once more brought shame to me. You sought to rise above your station, and were rightfully punished. Now, you seek to escape your rightful resting place, and now your sentence must become shorter and much more permanent. You have been judged by the all-seeing sun.”

He raised Khrusor, focusing his essence into it, preparing it to unleash a torrent of burning light that would cleanse this hideous place of these hideous rebels - then, there was a sharp sound, like the breaking of glass, and what was once Khrusor fell from his hand, broken into a million twinkling shards like grains of sand. Heliod stood still, hand still raised, unable to comprehend what had happened.

Before him, Elspeth stood taller - or was he shorter than he had been? - and in her grasp, Khrusor had been remade! No, it was her disgusting, oily spear, only now the shadowy substance flowed like smoke, and beneath it could be glimpsed the same golden hue that Khrusor had held a moment before. “The Shadowspear is your true legacy, laid bare for all to see.” And Heliod noticed that the brilliant light was no longer coming from him, it was not even coming from this mockery of his spear, it was shining from this interloper, this fallen champion, this  _ Elspeth _ . His own light was dimming, and for the first time in all his centuries, Heliod felt true fear. In his mind, he remembered Xenagos, the bastard brother, and how this same woman had torn divinity from him.

The god of the sun fell to his knees, now simply the size of a human, and cowered beneath the dark-yet-brilliant spear. He tried to plead, tried to cry out, but he had been a god; he simply didn’t know how. Instead, a low keening left his lips, and star-studded tears fell from his eyes.

An insidious voice spread through the room, a dry chuckle like funeral cloth over old bones. “Thank you, Elspeth, for finally putting my brother in his place.” Shadowy limbs rose around the prostrated Heliod, pulling him into the solid ground. In the span of a breath, he was gone, leaving only a pile of stars, the remnants of Khrusor. “As reward for what you have done, Elspeth Tirel, I offer you free passage to the land of mortals.” After a pause, he added, “I offer this to your… companions... as well.”

Low whispers spread through the crowd like wildfire. This was what they had waited for - freedom was so close they could taste it!

“No!” Elspeth cried out, startling those nearest her and cutting off all other discussion. “I will no longer accept anything the gods of this world offer! I take what is mine - my life, my destiny, and my will!”

The chuckle returned. “Yes, very well, you have certainly earned that. Go, now,” Erebos said, “before I change my mind about your followers.” At this, the crowd began to surge toward the rift, not disorderly, but each person there certainly did not wish to try the patience of the god of the dead.

When most had passed through the crimson distortion, Erebos spoke again. “One more thing, Tirel: You have become quite a nuisance to my brothers and sisters. It would be best if you were to leave Theros. For good.” Regardless of her rejection of the gods, Elspeth knew a threat when she heard it. Luckily, she had no intention of testing that threat.  _ Luckily for the gods. _


	14. Chapter 13: Into Worlds Beyond

**Chapter 13: Into Worlds Beyond**

Daxos felt the cataclysmic shift in his very soul, and hurried on. He could not explain how he knew where to go, he just knew that all of Theros was balanced on a knife’s edge, and it mattered that he arrived where he was going before it was too late.

Just over the next hill, Daxos saw a rift expelling individuals, some Returned, as he had been so recently, most mortals, with a few untethered souls. The last figure to emerge was the one that held his attention, though - Elspeth.

Before he knew what he was doing, Daxos had sprinted the remainder of the distance and was throwing his arms around the woman he had loved, tears running down his face. It was a moment before he realized she was not returning the embrace, and as he pulled back he recognized the spear in her hands, though it shimmered with a foreboding aura. At once, he knew what had happened.

“Heliod?” he asked, hoping he had misjudged the situation. He might have harbored resentment to the god in his past life, but now Heliod’s essence was at the core of his soul; Daxos was not sure what losing his deity would mean to a being such as him.

Elspeth shook her head. “Not dead. At least, I don’t think so. Erebos wasn’t quite clear.”

Daxos frowned, and not just at the mention of Erebos. “You’re leaving.” It wasn’t a question, but Daxos was not sure how he had meant it as a statement. Perhaps in the way she held herself aloof from him, perhaps in the distracted way she kept looking to the horizon. Perhaps because, deep down, he knew the bond between them was severed, perhaps had never really been there.

Elspeth smiled at him, a sad, tired smile that left his heart weeping. “I met someone, on my path to escape. He helped me remember that my destiny does not end on Theros.” She reached out and gripped Daxos’s upper arm. “But I am glad it brought me to you for as long as it did.”

Daxos’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean, on Theros?” He glanced up to the starry sky. “Surely you do not intend to visit Nyx? You are a mortal!”

Elspeth laughed, a lighthearted sound that carried across the excited crowd. “You’d be surprised where I’ve managed to find myself.” She looked into Daxos’s eyes, then her expression hardened in decision. “There are people and places, places far, far away, beyond Nyx even, whom I have a duty to protect. There is an enemy far more insidious than any god you know that it is my destiny to defeat.”

Daxos believed her. He couldn’t know how, but he believed that she meant every word, that she had a secret war waged beyond the stars, of which only she could sway the tide. He nodded to her, then stepped back. There had been joy in their friendship, and their love, but he was beyond that now, and he suspected she had always been beyond it.

Still, he cried out in amazement as Elspeth vanished into thin air.

~~

Calix had emerged from the portal quietly, following the escaped dead into the land of the living. He wondered if he technically counted as being alive or not; he had been created in a realm beyond even the domain of death, but he felt much more lively than the shambling Returned that milled about the buzzing crowd. These thoughts tumbled in his head as he heard birdsong for the first time, felt the cool damp of morning dew on grass between his toes, saw the way trees reached into the azure skies, fanning their leaves to drink from the sun.  _ It’s glorious, _ he thought,  _ as beautiful as the tapestry of fate. No, it  _ is _ the tapestry of fate. _

He was still marvelling when he caught sight of Elspeth, standing close to a stranger. He could tell their souls had been twined closely in the past, but now they diverged, heading off in their own directions. And Calix was determined to have his destiny align with Elspeth’s; how else could he convince her to return to Ilysia?

He had begun walking toward the pair when there was a flash of light, like the sun off a polished blade ( _ How incredible, that I can now imagine such a thing! _ ), and suddenly Elspeth, the woman he was created to bring to destiny’s door, was gone. Calix froze mid step as a strange sensation pulled at him from his navel, then spread to feel like every ounce of him was being pushed and pulled in every direction. “Oh,” was all he managed before the Nyxborn was plucked from the plane of Theros and thrust into the wild non-place of the Blind Eternities, hooked like a fish on a line.

Calix was amazed and delighted to find that he was able to survive in this obviously hazardous environment, but he soon abandoned all other thoughts as he recognized a brilliant white aura extending out into the distance (as much as distance could be comprehended here). Calix grinned, knowing what - or whom - he would find at the end of that trail: his sole purpose for existing.

Unable to resist any longer, Calix allowed himself to be pulled along in Elspeth’s wake into the infinite expanse of the Multiverse.


	15. Epilogue: Of Endings

**Epilogue: Of Endings**

_ Weeks later _

Erebos took form out of the shadows of the chamber in which Heliod waited. The once proud god stooped, subdued and chained, barely supporting the weight of a massive boulder: the prison of the Titans. As soon as the god of death materialized, Heliod’s grimace of pain became the snarl of hatred. “You can’t keep me here forever, brother.”

Erebos, many times larger than his shrunken brother, inspected the facets of the mighty prison. “True enough. You shall remain here only so long as your followers still remember you. After that - well, you recall our sister Amneae. Or perhaps you don’t.” A hint of levity tinged Erebos’s usually dead tones.

Heliod spat at Erebos’s feet. “I am the brightest of the gods,” he grunted through clenched teeth; talking was straining with the weight of the recaptured Titans on his back. “I will always remain in the minds of my disciples.”

Was it possible that Erebos smiled now? The god reached down to touch Heliod’s forehead, saying, “There is another to whom they turn now.” As his clammy touch left Heliod’s skin, images filled his mind, of his oracle, his tool, his Daxos, leading a charge against the remaining Titans, supported by Heliod’s siblings to either side. “For someone so eager to cement his godhood, you were quite reckless in granting almost the same title to another.” Heliod had no response to this.

“In time, Daxos will take up the mantle of your position,” Erebos continued, holding up a hand to stave off Heliod’s interruption. “That is simply the way things are. In the meantime, we are managing quite nicely without our so-called  _ leader _ . Sister Klothys even agreed to help us fight back the Titans -” his eyes touched the towering boulder “- after we promised to return our own demigods back to the Underworld, where they belong.”

Heliod dared to hope. With Daxos no longer on the surface, his followers would surely return to worshipping their true god.

It was almost too easy to pull this pitiful desperation from his brother. Erebos continued, “Fortunately for your replacement, Klothys did not require you to make such a promise; perhaps if she had only been able to find you before your…” Yes, Erebos was smiling now. “...demise. Even now, we fight across Theros alongside our demigods and Klothys’s weavers, pushing the Titans and other escaped monstrosities back to the edge of the Underworld.”

Heliod shook himself. “You were the one who let them escape.” Vehement accusation dripped from his voice.

The smile was gone from Erebos’s face. “Yes, well, the best way to strengthen the bond between recalcitrant allies is a common enemy, and my domain has enemies to spare.” He spread his wide arms, taking in all of the Underworld.

Heliod grunted, and the rocky prison rose a fraction of an inch higher. “You’ll never get away with this, brother. I shall break free from here, or my followers will unshackle me, and then you shall know retribution that even our brother Purphoros was spared from.” At the end, Heliod’s breath came in short spurts, and his shoulders ached.

Erebos stood silent for a moment before turning away from his brother. “You know, Daxos is beginning to grow on me.” He cast one final glance over his shoulder. “He’s much less talkative.”

His dry chuckle continued to echo in the chamber long after Erebos had faded from view. Heliod felt the immense prison get the tiniest bit heavier.


End file.
